JO KINO : NELLORE PORTION OF THE CARNATIC. 



A much less conspicuous elevation as compared with those described, 

 The low plateaus of *>ut st ^ remarkable and worthy of attention as 

 the coast. being continued with tolerable distinctness along 



nearly the whole of the Coromandel, is a narrow and very low plateau 

 ridge of sandstones, with a lateritic covering running generally north and 

 south at from 10 to 20 miles inland from the sea shore, and which cor- 

 responds with or is an extension of the Red Hills of Madras, Pondicherry, 

 Cuddalore, and Samulcottah, in the Godavari district. Here, however, 

 it is perhaps better defined than in any other equal length of the coast 

 line, while it preserves a tolerably uniform level surface seldom varying 

 much between 40 and 70 feet above the sea on its higher or western 

 side. The edges are well defined, particularly on the western side, by a 

 slight steep slope, or else a low scarp, and sometimes even by fair head- 

 lands giving a clear look-out over the intervening low country towards 

 the mountain wall, whereas the eastern side is distinguished by the flat 

 alluvial deposits shoring up along the very gentle seaward slope. 



This plateau ridge marks what may be considered the last permanent 



upheaval of the Coromandel; but the views of 

 Age of. 



the Survey differ as to the period when this may 



have taken place. Mr. Foote is inclined to consider that it took place 



during the human period, since he has found stone implements of human 



manufacture which he considers were embedded in the laterite capping 



the southern portion of this ridge in the Madras district, having been 



dropped by their owners in the waters then covering the country. I too 



found the same kinds of implements embedded in a lateritoid deposit, but 



it certainly appeared to me then, and still does so, safer to look on these 



as having been cemented with other debris by ferruginous waters under 



ordinary atmospheric exposure, and that these weapons were dropped on 



dry land or in fresh waters, that land being possibly more covered with 



jungle and water much after the style of the southern coast of Ceylon, where 



an analogous rock to laterite, locally called "cabook," is still being 



formed. The sandstones of this ridge being of presumably early tertiary 



age, the last elevation of the Carnatic must be of later times, but I 



think it is yet doubtful whether we can fix it so late as the human period. 



( H8 ) 



